The authors study the performance of a system in which mass storage is provided by a file server node on a network of client processors. The server controls a hierarchy of storage devices and provides all necessary file management functions. The clients are large mainframe UNIX systems that have their own local storage devices. The movement of files among the various storage levels is managed by a hierarchical storage management system. The authors develop and solve a closed queuing network model of the client-server storage system, which is used to analyze the performance of the system for various file movement criteria, and to study the tradeoffs between recalling a file and accessing it by a distributed file system. Several network topologies (Ethernet, FDDI, Channel-to-Channel) and their effect on performance are considered.
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